Canadian Lakehead Exhibition 1953 fresh and new Stock Car film with written play by play from our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ont.

Rarely do we find an old piece of never seen before film from the original Canadian Lakehead Exhibition 1/2 mile track, and before I show it to you, I have to thank a few people for it's find and excellent film transfer to present day digital.

Firstly, I believe the photographer back in 1953 was Y. W. Nelson of Port Arthur as noted on the 8mm film pack.  It was given to me by Louis Shaw for my exclusive use.  The film transfer was done by Mark Lucchese of "Once In A Lifetime Productions" who did an incredible job keeping as much colour and clarity as possible.  To get the best transfer is having the original film to do it.

Many of the names and numbers you will see don't match the ones later in the 1950's.  The Lakehead Stock Car Club was in its infancy here and drivers were just starting out, many changed cars and numbers as time went on, but what you see and read here is taken from archives.

I will show the silent film first, then I will do a rundown on who all the drivers were back in 1953/54.  You can enlarge the film to full screen by passing your mouse and clicking on the little box on the bottom right hand corner of the film clip then click on Esc (escape) on your computer to bring it back to here.

The play by play starts and continues as each car number appears in the film:

Parked in the pits in the front is the #2 black and white car driven by Tom Dow, and parked next to him in red and white is #3 driven by Eddie Cusson.  The #89 black with white lettering is Pat Allen.  Next to him in pale yellow is #88, Albert Massaro.

Cruising by is #57 driven by Brent Hard.  #97 in red and white is John Cole.  The tri-coloured car is #37 driven by Glen Kettering.

Following that is an overhead pit shot.  They lined up the cars in the pits in numerical order for the judges.

Lined up next are the red #73, Jim Manduca, then #57 Brent Hard, followed by #88, Albert Massaro showing its checkered top.  #3 is Eddie Cusson, #97 is John Cole.  These cars commence a race.

With the photographer actually standing on the top or the old original grandstand you can clearly see all the elevators on the waterfront and pretty much nothing at all in the intercity area.

Massaro and Cusson battle for 1st place, and if you look closely you can see #7 driven by Louis Tocheri in Maroon and Yellow.  Passing Louis is #11 driven by John Zatti (The Potter and Kerr car).  Coming in neck and neck is #11 John Zatti and #90 Dickie Tonkin.  

Parked in front of the grandstand is the famous silver #47, One of Barry Kettering's first car (the roller skate car).

Lining up is #83, a studebaker driven by John Panvica, then #89 driven by Pat Allen.  Pulling out of the pits is #49, a Dominion Motors sponsored Pontiac driven by Conrad Trombelli.

The #95 7up car driven by Bob Cameron with a nice lead, but coming our of turn 2 hit the rub rail and rolled it.  Then can't quite see who took the win.

Next you see #99, another car driven by Johnny Panvica (different class)  Classes were slow car and fast car determined by time trials and modifications.  Then you see #37 the Glen Kettering car, then the extra nice orange '49 Ford #15 driven by Sam Myronuk.  

The next scene shows single file, first the checkered top car #77 driven my Clyde Ditmars from Kakabeka Falls, then #2 Tom Dow, then the blue #99 Johnny Panvica.  Another car you can see here is #98 driven by Ross "Pappy" Fowler.

The film ends with #37 Glen Kettering and #15 Sam Myronuk in a dead heat at the finish.

I hope you enjoyed this treasure.  It is the best coloured and oldest film I have seen from The Lakehead Stock Car Club. 1953

The Centerfold from the 1953 program below shows all the names and numbers.

 

The Battle with the Fence at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Race Track in the 1950's in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario...

 This is one of my favourites that I decided to re-post.  This is my first and only re-post which was originally shown about 3 years ago...enjoy again!

The photos here may have been the best of the best when it came to keeping the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition carpenters in gainful employment during the 1950's.  The wooden fence was to keep non paying cheapskate fans from viewing the unprecedented dirt racing excitement for free.  The fence was built without even an eye width crack in between the boards and I had heard that even knot holes were covered with an additional piece of wood.

However, this didn't stop the jalopy jockeys from helping the non paying customers to a free show by continually cleaning out yards and yards of fence.  Initially there was just a wooden fence beside the track.  Along Northern Ave., and just outside the wooden part was a wire fence with a barbed wire top.....The fair folks weren't fooling around when it came to discouraging free viewing.

Obviously that didn't deter the stock car pilots from tearing up most of the fence, so the fairgrounds opted for wooden beams all round the track, just inside the stockade.   Some people thought they were only railroad ties, but closely scrutinizing some of these photos, the wooden "rub rail" as we called it was more like 12" X 12" beams....well, maybe some of it was RR ties.

As you can see in this first photo, Bill Kruse driving the #41 Bolduc Tire car very systematically  took out about 20 feet of wooden fence, around turn #2 along Northern Ave.  Here it doesn't look like there was much of a rub rail, but you will see in some of the following 28 photos that there was a very heavy duty rub rail installed as early as 1953.

Here is a 1953 newspaper clipping on the problem.  The problematic fence destruction at the CLE track never actually ended until the very last race was held here in 1966.  Be sure to click on all the photos once or twice to get a full screen size rendition of all the photos.

In the picture to the right Louis Tocheri #19 did his share of fence destruction while the fans outside the barricade jumped for joy, as there was a huge gap in the fence where they could watch the whole nights events in full colour for FREE.

 On the left you can really see how high the rub rail became early in the 1954 racing season, but it didn't deter #88 Albert Massaro from tearing out a few yards of the track's enclosure.
On a side note here, Rea's Esso Service was located in the exact spot as the large parking lot for the Spence Clinic building (Arthur Square).  That's on the corner of Arthur and Mark's St.


Here, Mike Guzzi's #4 is sitting on top of some very large beams of wood....I can't imagine what it would be like to jump up on those rub rails.  Hitting a tire on the infield of Riverview Raceway was a hard enough hit in the day.

 Here Glen Kettering #37 and Fred Danis #22 mix it up on top of the rub rail as Tony Massaro #87 goes speeding by.  You can also vividly see the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Coliseum building in the background to put this photo in perspective.









In this photo we have Jerry Whittaker #75 and a very rare photo of Tom Dow's black and white #2 car mixing it up coming out of turn 4 and heading towards the grandstand stretch.....again the beams here are quite large, but sort of protected some of the fence on the west side of the track.

 Tony Massaro had wrecked quite a few vintage cars of the day and this one is no exception....when this car drove out onto the track, it still had its original hubcaps in place and the license plate as you can see here is still intact.....and....oh yes, 40 or 50 feet of fence was gone in this incident.



Barry Kettering is sitting on the side bar of his #47 "Bud's Thing" race car with a member of his pit crew bent over being sure that Barry was OK after removing over 70 feet of fence and sitting on top of the rub rail.  The rest of the boys are wondering how to get it off the high wooden rub rail.  On the back of Barry's car it reads "Bass Ackwards"....do you remember that saying? .....and on the top above the back window it says "Royal Triton Motor Oil".

Jim Manduca #73 had his share of fence removal as well.  Read this post right to the end to see the best story yet with Jim involved.  As you can see there is quite a bit of fence gone here and also the barbed wire didn't stop anyone from standing on top of the wire fence in the background, and the guys on their truck roof now have a direct view of the whole race track.

In this photo the #21 driver is unknown, the #12 car was the Deluxe Flower Shop deuce coupe driven by Cye Kehoe, and just about to rip through the fence and into what was known as the cattle barns on turn 1 on our half mile CLE track is non other than Ed Cusson's #13 car.  The barns nicely curved along turn 1 and were a target for may jalopy in the day.

This is a great photo of John Stad's #6 car just inches away from being a river rat.  The angle of the track was such that if you left the track between turn 3 and 4, this is where you would end up.  Many jalopies met their demise on this corner.  Interestingly in the background you can see the old CLE walking bridge that would lead to the parking lot and the midway during fair week.  Below is Barry Ketterings cute little '32 Ford 5W coupe "Bud's Thing" with its nose into the river at a night time race meet at about the same spot as John Stad's car above......but Barry had some help from a higher source and had it proudly displayed on the back bumper of his little coupe....It stated "In God We Trust".... It must have helped because his little #47 never did go all the way in....they were able to get it out of the river and into the next race.

Here is #88 Albert Massaro eyeing up the front of his car wondering if they will ever be able to recover it from the outside of the wooden stockade.  This was actually an earlier photo when there was little or no rub rail to keep you inside the track.  It was truly amazing how many people watched from truck boxes and standing atop the barbed wire...If everyone was inside in the grandstand, they could probably have topped the 6000 fan mark.

Another picture showing the CLE Coliseum in the background.  This is #35 car driven by Don Deacon sitting high and dry atop the famed rub rail we talked about so much on this post.  Check out the size of that front bumper protecting the fragile radiator.

Yet another 50 feet of fence down.....truly I would have hated to be the carpenter or even one of a crew of carpenters to have to repair this fence every single week.  This is the #60 car driven by Don Marsh......and as we know, so many of these wonderful little pieces of hot rod material were destroyed.  The '32 Ford coupe was and still is today the most quintessential piece of hot rod material ever made by any manufacturer.  Click twice to enlarge all photos.

Read the story above and then click here on the two photos mentioned above...click on either once or twice to enlarge them for a screen size view.

Now look at this unidentified jalopy literally hopping over the rub rail and wiping out another 50 feet of fence.... "How did I do that?" he said, and "Geez, I parked my vehicle right there before the races too.....Oh Nooo."

Here again and below is Jim Manduca in his #73  Ford coupe after about a 200 foot new gap in the CLE fence.....The ecstatic fans on the other side of the fence can watch the race for free now and they won't even have to stand on the bus turnaround shelter.  The scenery in the background is of course the bus terminal between Fort William and Port Arthur  on Fort William Road....remember transferring buses between the twin cities there?  The fair board is sure missing a ton of revenue here again.

 #79 was Murray Simmons, and the next two photos of Murray's cars were basically taken at the same time but one from track side and one from the other side.  You can see how dangerous the wooden posts would be splintering like this.  One of the most serious accidents that happened at the CLE track was to Wes Inkster in about 1957.  He lost an eye due to wood fragments and had many health issues later due to his accident.

Malcolm Galbraith is seen here on the right in his little #35  '32 Ford 3W coupe.  It almost looks like the little jalopy had a mind of its own and just wanted to jump the rub rail and tear down a long length of fence.  This again is along Northern Ave and a new home is being built there....obviously no complaints about the dirt and noise had yet been heard.

Here is the best photo of the post in my opinion.  It is Jim Manduca again in the ditch as he just entered the #3 turn, and guess what.....yes you did, another 30 feet of fence is down....but scroll down and LOOK at the next photo for the detail to see what or who is in the tree that was narrowly missed by Jim.

Click on the clip to read it better.... Hope you enjoyed this post...and hope you're all having a great summer.  Dave.

A Night To Remember......A Special Thank You to all involved this past weekend.

Found by Glenn McKinnon, this is one of my favorite photos taken at the CLE grounds in front of the old grandstand and the old judges stand.

This is very close to the spot on the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition grounds where we held our free 130th anniversary bash this past Sunday, August 2nd 2020 with fabulous live music and a spectacular fireworks display with major sponsors Halfway Motors and others such as Rebel Spirit Band, Private Eyes Band, Pyro Boyz Fireworks, The United Commercial Travelers handling all the parking and security, Tbaytel, Java Hut, The Chronicle Journal and Al's Sewage.

As a member of the committee, myself and all the committee members with the CLE Board of Directors wish to thank all of our sponsors for their incredible support as well as all the volunteers who gave their time to help in any way possible including our kids count accepting donations. We couldn't have done this without all of you and we are so grateful for your participation in the best Covid-19 event held in Thunder Bay this year. We also want to thank all those who came to enjoy this event and honking their horns in appreciation of the bands playing. It will be an evening we will remember forever.

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THIS AUGUST 2nd, 2020....rain date Aug. 3rd

MARK AUGUST 2nd ON YOUR CALENDAR......rain date August 3rd

The Canadian Lakehead Exhibition has announced the event of the year for 2020. This is the CLE's 130th Anniversary year and what a crazy year it has been. The CLE wanted to give something back to the public for all the years of support and hold this spectacular get together utilizing all the Covid-19 Rules and Regulations and approved by the Thunder Bay Health Unit. This free admission Celebration is proudly presented by Half-Way Motors, and with the support of other organizations and businesses we are able to hold this historic festivity.

Click on the poster to view it in its entirety, and feel free to right click on the poster, to save it and to share it. Tell everyone.

One final note - Donations in support of Our Kids Count will be gratefully accepted.

113-119 Leith St., 234 Park St., Destroying Vintage Cars? and The Powder Puff Girls in our Home Towns of Fort William and Port Arthur

I am off to a great start in the last few days doing posts for my own facebook page and the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Memories facebook page, but MOST importantly my premier site HR&J desperately needed this post that I have been working on for quite awhile....it is fairly lengthy but interesting with 25 photos.

The first photo here is extremely interesting.  The photo actually came from Richard Mark's FB page and as soon as I saw it I instantly knew what it was.  Sellers and Jones was an automotive dealership back in the late 1910's and into the 1920's.  I vaguely remember my father telling me a bit about the history of the original Kam Motors Limited building on Leith St., and the words Sellers and Jones had come to mind.  Incredibly the tall part of this building still exists to this very day, and through the years it was doubled in size by getting rid of the Sellers and Jones old wood tire store structure and adding an identical structure to the west of the original, making the address 113-119 Leith St.  That address is the same today.  The cars you see in the photos are likely 1918 Studebakers, or maybe Essex, or maybe Willys-Knight....it is truly very difficult to tell as many looked so much the same near the end of the Brass era.

However, before this became Kam Motors Limited, it went through another era from which there are no photographs or at least none found as yet.  I do have a few old invoices that tell their own stories as you will see.

Caption: 113-119 Leith Street, Fort William Ontario.  At the very end was a large Elevator and where the street lights are is Simpson St.

This is how the modern building looks recently and you can still count 6 large windows across the structure, and 3 across the old photo above, because as I mentioned, the building was doubled in size.  The only difference in the new photo to an actual today photo would be that the old Palace confectionery building still stands down at the corner of Leith and Simpson St.  That spot is a Used Truck dealer now.

OK...here we go...If you click on this 1927 Grain Port Motors Limited "Ford" Dealership invoice it oddly reads 113-119 Leith St. as a Fort William address with a phone number of S.1000.  Therefore Grain Port Motors occupied this space for awhile in and around 1927.

Grain Port Motors claim to fame was that it was likely a sponsor of sorts in the day for the famed local race car "The King's Special" a story about this car was written on these pages some time ago.

Below is a close-up of whats called a Moto Meter and sometimes called a Motor Meter, vividly displaying Grain Port Motors, Fort William and Port Arthur.
The photo next to it is none other than Frank Colosimo driving the "King's Special" here in the 1920's, sporting the Moto Meter shown below from the restored Kings Special.

So here is a pretty fuzzy photo of what Kam Motors looked like after Grain Port Motors short lived time there.  The building of course, as mentioned above is the Sellers and Jones building when it was doubled in size, but taken from a different angle.  It lived to be Kam Motors Limited owned by the Hubert Badanai family for well over half a century until the family decided to close the Kam Motors and Port Arthur Motors and open a new establishment on Memorial Ave. called Badanai Motors.  The very rear portion of the building today houses the Badanai Motors Auto Body Shop.
The Kam Motors Building still stands today even with part of the original signage and original wall on the east side of the building still showing as seen in the photo to the right.  It's still 113-119 Leith Street, and owned by Diamond Taxi.

My father gave Kam Motors Limited 33 years of his life as the Body Shop Manager.  The body shop was originally upstairs and there used to be a huge automobile elevator to bring the cars to the top level.  You can imagine dragging a total wreck onto the elevator and having to drag it back off once upstairs.  Kam also sold thousands of Chevrolet's Oldsmobile's and Cadillac's, but actually once sold Fords in the beginning and Hudson and Essex cars before General Motors cars were sold.  Kam also sponsored and built a Jalopy, or stock car which was driven by a few different guys in the day such as Canary Trevisan and Bill Chepil.  My father even raced it a couple of times.  In the photo to the right note the large doors that were for repairing large trucks, which you can see in the photo with the #34 Chevrolet 6 cylinder powered Jalopy below.

Here's a photo of my father taken in the brand new body shop which was built behind the main Kam building with none other than and Oldsmobile Tornado in the background.  My dad always wore a hat and a tie while at work managing the shop.











OK...here we go again...what was at 234 Park Street in Port Arthur.  From the following invoice it says Campbell Motor Company of Port Arthur, Limited....Central Garage.  The Invoice was made out to Pigeon Timber or in long terms it should say Pigeon River Timber, as in Pigeon River Minnesota.....or at least named after that.  Campbell Motor Company did reside at 234 Park Street as mentioned which is now the North parking lot for our Casino.  You can click on all these items to enlarge and see them better.

This is the logo for Pigeon River Timber...the client shown on the invoices.

Here is another invoice for Campbell Motor Company on 234 Park Street and shows that they sell Dodge Brothers Motor Cars and Graham Brothers Trucks.

Here are two advertising pieces that would have been in Campbell Motors Showroom in the day, as of course they sold these vehicles.  Check on the above invoice for this data.

.....and this is what 234 Park Street looks like today

Stock Cars:  In the early days of racing here especially the 1950's, so many possible hot rod projects got destroyed on the race track such as '32 Fords, '40 Fords and many old Chevrolet's, Chrysler products etc, but in the day that was only considered junk in someone's back yard.  When I started racing at Riverview raceways, the junk in the back yards were '55 to '57 Chevrolet's, Pontiac's early '50's Fords etc., and we destroyed those vehicles then just as they did in the '50's.  I destroyed 3 '55/'56 Pontiac 2-door sedans, one of which was so nice, I drove it home before we proceeded to tear it down for a race car and weld in roll bars.  I also did that to a '66 Dodge Charger in the early 1970's to race at Riverview.......here are the examples.  Now everyone wants these cars....the cycle will never end....BUT, what cars from today will people want in 20 or 25 years.  They all look the same just as they did in the 1910's....funny how history repeats itself.

Finally:  A subject in this post that I always wanted to bring up...that is, The Powder Puff Gals from the 1950's.  The promoters from our Canadian Lakehead Exhibition race track always wanted to please the fans....they never wanted fans to get bored just watching the same old thing, so they promoted events such as stock car drivers staging fights in front of the old grandstand that sometimes turned into the real thing or grudge racing between two rivals...and it kept the fans coming in and proof in the pudding was that there were many race days with five to six thousand fans in the 1950's.
One of my favorite promoted events was Powder Puff Racing.  Some brave young women, some being wives or even mothers of the drivers there at the CLE would take to the track in their sons or husbands cars in all out daredevil competition.  I was great to see but in the mind site of the car owners and drivers they were sitting on tacks hoping that their cars wouldn't be destroyed before the race was over, as they had to continue racing the same day.  Eventually they would race last on race days so that if there was ever an accident, the car could at least be repaired for the next race day.
The first photo series is actually a page out of the 1953 racing program at the CLE showing those brave gals putting the pedal to the metal in those Jalopies...click to enlarge.

The second one here is a newspaper cut out showing a nice photo of the winner of the day Leona Baarup.  Another newspaper group photo is shown below.
How I miss those simpler times and days and many times wishing they could still be around....but thank goodness many photographers took pictures and many writers for the newspaper wrote incredible re-caps of the racing days back in the times of Hotrods and Jalopies.

The writers of these articles were fabulous.....you can see in the top corner here July 9/1953

Hope you enjoyed this post......let us know if you did, and join blogger so you don't miss any posts.  Thanks, Dave